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Carpinteria’s city council voted to host up to three “impartial” public education presentations on Venoco oil company’s controversial plans to take its proposal for erecting a new slant-drilling platform directly to the voters. Councilmember Joe Armendariz opposed the presentations, arguing that the council—having spent $250,000 in legal fees against the Venoco initiative—was hardly impartial. In addition, Armendariz noted that the council would be voting in February whether to take a stand on the matter.

It appears that there are at least three councilmembers—a majority—who oppose the drilling project. On the other side, Carpinteria Mayor Greg Carty has been under pressure to recuse himself from voting on the presentations because his father, his father-in-law, and a tenant in a house he owns all signed the ballot statement in favor of the Venoco initiative.

Venoco has said the city could reap untold millions in oil royalties by approving the drilling platform, which would be located right behind City Hall. Critics argue that Venoco is seeking to bypass the city’s environmental review and planning process by taking the matter directly to city voters. Further, they’ve accused Venoco of exaggerating how much the city stands to make in oil royalties, arguing that the formula by which the California State Lands Commission would split the royalties with local governments remains to be determined. Whatever that is, they contend, proceeds would have to be split with the County of Santa Barbara as well. The election is slated for the ballot this June.

Comments

This will be a very important opportunity for expression of the will of the people. Those who wish to protect the environment will need to work diligently to get out the vote. We will be underfunded, as always, but we have shown that, when we pull together, we can defeat measures like this.

Veneco would raise the price of gasolene in the area to cover their losses. That is what they did when the oil hit the beaches a while back. We are already paying higher prices for gasolene than most areas.

The reason for substantially higher prices for California gasoline is the very strict California specifications on gasoline -- what I call "California Boutique Gasoline." California had environmentalists determine the specifications for gasoline we use. There are very few refineries that can actually produce this gas, so supply is restricted and prices are higher. Sorry, no conspiracy here.

Anyone listen to the President last night? The majority of US voters are in favor of increased offshore drilling. Where do three council members in tiny little Carp get off blocking the will of the US voter? Same goes for SB city and county...

In true SB tradition, I'm starting a new non-profit, to be known as GGOOO, or Get 'Get Goo Out' Out. Donations can be made in $US dollars or barrels of leaked crude oil harvested from the sands of Santa Barbara. The organization will be dedicated to the education of the public regarding oil drilling and the lies of environmentalists who would keep California importing middle Eastern oil rather than drilling its own. The organization will also investigate persistent rumors of heavy Middle East funding of environmental organizations.

I'm starting a nonprofit to raise money for JohnLocke, so he can get the help he so clearly and desperately needs. Thanks for reminding us that free speech applies to even the most LUDICROUS of comments.

I, for one, hope there's a TON of of Middle East funding going to environmental groups. Jordan, U.A.E., Bahraín, and Turkey are all affected by global warming, too. Or we're you implying that all Middle Easterners are terrorists? (Which I am sure had no racists connotations.... nope, not one bit.)

I look forward to your lucid and coherent response. Come on John, BRING ME THE CRAZY!!!

Hi, EatThe RIch. Back with your usual bloviating nonsense, I see. Didja ever get remedial math help for your rather incredible miscalculation in our traffic enforcement debate? You know, when you multiplied instead of dividing?

I think you missed the point about Middle Eastern funding for environmental groups; they woujld do it so as to ensure we don't drill our oil, but continue to buy theirs. Ya think the oil producing nations care about global warming? Got a nice bridge I'd like to sell you....

And b4 the Web Admin cuts us off again, I'll do it. I'm not interested in further interaction with you. No real thought from you, just insults. Buh bye..

John Locke apparently thinks that one can judge how a majority of US voters stand regarding offshore oil drilling by the amount of applause at the state of the union speech. Odd, that. The real John Locke was a seminal thinker; the impostor here utterly fails to live up to his namesake.

Our website (and others throughout the US) have been targeted by Spammers who actually take the time to go through the registration process and then manually add their silly messages.

The method can't be automatically blocked because until their spam appears they are no different from any other registered user.

Although we make every effort to quickly remove the ads, they tend to target us in the wee hours of the morning when we are short staffed; helpful readers may alert us by emailing: webadmin@independent.com.

Poll: 74 percent support offshore oil drilling in U.S. Jun 26, 2008 ... Three in four likely voters – 74 percent – support off-shore drilling for oil in US coastal waters and more than half (59 percent) also ...www.naplesnews.com/.../poll-74-percen...

67% Support Offshore DrillingJun 13, 2008 ... Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in the country today. ... Most voters favor the resumption of offshore drilling in the ... offshore oil drilling is allowedwww.rasmussenreports.com/.../67_suppo... - Cached - Similar

68% Favor Offshore Oil Drilling - Rasmussen Reports™Dec 16, 2009 ... Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in ... Voter support for offshore oil drilling remains as strong as it was ...www.rasmussenreports.com/.../offshore...

51% of Californians back offshore drilling - SFGateRepublicans account for the greatest jump in support of offshore oil drilling, with 77 percent in favor, compared with 60 percent in the same poll last year ...articles.sfgate.com/.../17174503_1_oil-drilling-offshore-oil-oil-prices

And if a patient dies at a hospital, or a policeman accidentally arrests the wrong person, or an accountant makes an error in addition, or you make an error in your job... same penalty?

Seeing as how there has been only one significant oil spill out of 7200 offshore wells drilled in California, I don't think the CEO's would be too worried. You don't seem to appreciate the fact that an oil company would rather sell its oil than spill it, and would prefer to avoid the massive lawsuits and cleanup costs a major spill would entail.

"Why does a burglar who breaks into your house go to jail, and a CEO who robs us of our coast line goes to the country club?"

Because the burglar is breaking the law. An accidental oil spill is not a criminal offense unless a court can prove negligence.

By the way, does your house float on air? Were the materials it's made of created by magic and were they delivered to your homesite and constructed by a genie? What do you put in your tank to get to work?

Tell me why you think that we shouldn't also send all beachfront homeowners, hotels, and restaurants to jail. Or do you imagine all of these structures have improved our coastline?

Thanks for the review of facts and for asking some compelling questions, Swimmer. Perhaps you've noticed, as I have, that certain people in the reality distortion zone that is Santa Barbara bear a strong resemblance to radical Islam in their behavior: They hold dear to a set of beliefs, they are impervious to reason, fact, and logic, and they hate anyone who dares to disagree with them. Instead of blowing themselves up and thereby relieving the world of their insanity, they hurl insults. Unfortunately,many of our local environmentalists fit that description; I suspect they have no idea how much they damage their own cause.

Yes unfortunately much of the energy debate in this country is based purely on convictions and emotions rather than facts. I think most environmentalists are well meaning, but when it comes to the oil industry all reason is lost, conspiracies and all sorts of evil are taken for granted, and critical analysis is ignored.

A very famousscientist once said that when scientists quit asking questions and think they have all the answers, then science becomes religion. That may apply here (e.g. 'reputable scientists have decided that global warming is a real problem and is caused by CO2 emissions primarily from burning hydrocarbons. How dare you disagree, you [fill in whatever insulting phrase you like]'..'

why bring up radical Islam Mr. Locke? I would argue that radical Christianity is guilty of far worse in these times. If you are keeping score: 9/11 killed how many Americans? And the war in Iraq has killed how many? Has the number of soldiers we have lost over there exceeded 9/11 yet? Our last president was more radical than those waco's in Texas, maybe he was even a waco. He is 'from' Texas, (by way of Conneticut is it?) He is an oil man. It seems that Oil men will go to whatever lengths to get their product and sell it to the masses, even if that means murdering 100,000 + humans. Venoco's way of doing business is stinky right now. Swimmer's % are laughable as well. Varying from 74% - 51% approval for drilling. I am 100% against. Put that in your poll.

swimmer, you missed the point entirely. I made no comment whatsoever regarding the public's stance on offshore oil drilling. I merely observed that JohnLocke's utterly failed logic. Had he, instead, cited actual evidence such as you did, I would have had no comment at all.

JohnLocke's subsequent post brings to mind another important saying, "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

I got your point, it was very simple one. You made the assumption that JohnLocke was basing his statement entirely on applause seen on TV. This is a groundless assumption, and for someone to criticize another on the basis of such weak information shows a certain lack of imagination and civility. How do you know he wasn't aware of the same polls? They are in the public record and have been widely published. What your post tells me is that you are unaware of public sentiment, which may be different from your sentiment, or the sentiment of the people of Carpinteria.

swimmer, JohnLocke did not cite polls or any other evidence. He stated, "Anyone listen to the President last night? The majority of US voters are in favor of increased offshore drilling." That's lousy logic...or damn poor presentation of his opinion if there is any other basis for it.

But this is easy to settle. JohnLocke, did you mean to imply that the reaction in Congress was evidence of the majority opinion? If you based your assertion on the type of evidence swimmer presented, why did you cite the SOTU speech and not that evidence?

Recently cited polls in the WSJ (though my guess is that some of you won't give that one any credibility), the LA Times, Newsweek, the Economist, and even that bastion of radical right wing thinking, the NYT (do your own reading) have all indicated strong support, well in excess of 50% of the US population, for increased offshore drilling. My comments about SB as a reality distortion zone apply to those who, because they hear much anti-drilling blather from the loud minority in SB, think that the rest of the country agrees. Not true.

My reference to the SOTU was Obama's specific call for more such drilling, greeted with applause from both sides (i.e. Rep and Dem) of the aisle.

And I stand by my comments comparing certain environmentalista to radical Islam, though the logic could certainly be applied to any group of true believers.

Swimmer: I wouldn't waste too many keystrokes on SezMe or EatTheRIch. Neither of them could make it through a junior high debating course and they are both much more interest in insult and gotcha than in serious discussion.

JohnLocke, you're right there. I've had a number of these kinds of "debates" with the oil conspiracy crowd. They always end the same way. You can present them with fact after fact which contradicts them, and they will have none of it. Bigotry trumps analysis every time.

In any kind of discussion, ultimately these people have only one kind of ammo: "I don't believe you." Never, and I mean never, have any of them prepared even a weak case for their views. It's all just name-calling, personal bias, and assumptions. You'll notice I didn't even bother with this spacey character. The name says it all.

SezMe, why do you put so much emphasis on such a pedantic point? Surely the key observation is whether the US public supports offshore drilling. And they do. Your insistence on this technicality of who knew what when is really kind of strange. JohnLocke was correct. That's what counts. Please just accept it and move on.

JohnLocke's latest post is just rich with irony. He compares "certain environmentalista to radical Islam" then proceeds to complain about people who "are both much more interest in insult and gotcha than in serious discussion." Pot, meet kettle.

swimmer adds to the irony pile by stating "You'll notice I didn't even bother with this spacey character. The name says it all." Ad Hominem at its finest. Looks like "insult and gotcha" to me.

Neither of you have any idea whatsoever regarding my stance on offshore drilling. I have only taken a position here that the debate should be factually based. swimmer thinks that is a "pedantic point". Sad, really.

spacey is accusing members of the oil industry of murder, and also criminal intent to cause environmental disaster. He slanders people who happen to be born in Texas. He thinks people should be arrested for occupational blunders (oh sorry, only oil people). And you think my reply is a vicious ad hominem, out of line? Gosh.

The debate should be fact-based. You're correct. But focusing on irrelevant facts is a waste of everyone's time. It may be very sad, but I've already gotten over it. I'm sure you can too.

By the way, if you're so concerned about facts, do you want to respond to our friend spacey's charges? Someone is accused of murder and you're silent, but you have posted several emails now about the SOTU applause meter. Now THAT is sad! :-)

SezMe, my comparison of certain environmentalista with radical Islam was neither ironic nor name-calling, but rather a quite serious comparison of the mental processes of the two. Once again, consider the similarities: they hold dear to a set of beliefs, they are impervious to reason, fact, and logic, and they hate anyone who dares to disagree with them. Name-calling is more like "pot, meet kettle". And hey, spacey picked his (or her) own posting name, so I guess he (or she) is self-referencing.

BTW, according to the various polls I mentioned b4, the percentage of US citizens who believe we should increase offshore drilling is somewhere between 52 and 74%, depending on which poll you look at. Those are facts. I fully expect that the noisy oil conspiracy minority will either ignore those facts or deny them (as spacey already has, seeming to think that the fact that he is 100% against drilling somehow disproves the polls? frankly his 'reasoning' is beyond me) and maybe even go beyond that in a spacey kinda way and accuse the pollsters of murder, child molestation, cannibalism, etc....

The thing JohnLocke is deliberately not mentioning about these polls (and hence, the reason why he refuses to cite any sources) is that these polls were largely done during or around the massive oil price spike in 2008, when most people nationwide were paying well over $3.00 a gallon for gas (some places were approaching $5). Many people were having trouble making ends meet due to the massive price increase, and there wasn't any indication that a decrease would happen.

So to pass these off as polls without context, while comparing environmental groups to everything between terrorists groups and child molesters, is about as disingenuous as you can get - which is typical for JohnLocke.

To turn your argument around, what you are saying is that you will only accept such polls, and therefore only recognize the will of the general public, during times when you see fit to do so.

I don't really see why "context" is an issue. Should we invalidate Obama's election result because the vote was taken at a time when the US was disappointed by the Republican administration? The reasons for a decisions always have context. Times change, circumstances change, and the concerns of the general public change too. What if similar poll numbers persist for years? How long does your context rule apply?

You refuse to recognize them and cite "context" only because you disagree. You will not call on the "context" argument if the people of Carpinteria vote down the Venoco proposal, will you?

Though I said I was done with you this is just too outrageous to pass up. I did quote sources, pal, five highly respected national and international sources. You just need to look for yourself (or maybe just broaden your reading list - I showed you mine, now you show me yours). A simple Google search on 'oil drilling polls' will provide the citations you seek (you do know how to search the 'net, don't you)?. I'll certainly not waste a second of my time typing or even copy-and-pasting citations you could easily find for yourself, if you were the least bit inclined toward factual debate. You, on the other hand, have quoted nothing but your own opinion.

You are, however correct about the timing of the polls, although in inflation-corrected terms the price of gasoline never exceeded that of 1980 (once again, easy data to find for the factually inclined). All the weeping and wailing about gasoline prices sort of ignored that fact. But the price of oil will rise again along with the worldwide economy, as will public opinion regarding drilling.

And you clearly have no sense of irony if you took my comparison with child molesters seriously. But the comparison with the mindset of terrorists - totally valid (don't focus on 'terrorist'; focus on mindset ('they hold dear to a set of beliefs, they are impervious to reason, fact, and logic, and they hate anyone who dares to disagree with them').

"And you think my reply is a vicious ad hominem, out of line? Gosh."--swimmer

I have pored over my post and I cannot find the word "vicious". Please don't put words in my keyboard.

You have asked me to respond to spacey's post so I will. I have ignored it up to this point because I do not think it worthy of a response. It's mostly angry arm waving of the sort JohnLocke denounces.

I'll continue to ignore his/her ad hominems regarding Texas, "waco"(the town or wacko?) and oil men. The only point worth addressing is the attempt to connect the pursuit of oil with "murdering 100,000+ humans." I assume this is an allusion to the Iraq mess.

I reject the notion that "Oil men" murdered hundreds of thousands of people. That said, I do think mideast oil reserves played a very important role in both Iraq military actions. In the 90s, Hussein's invasion of Kuwait directly threatened Saudi oil facilities and production and the stability of the entire region. Allowed to continue, his actions also threatened to cause oil prices to dramatically rise. The world's economies could not withstand such an event so we drove him back.

The current mess is not directly about Iraq's oil reserves but it is partly again about the US establishing a dominant military presence in the area to assure stability of oil production and shipment. This policy has, indeed, led to over 100,000 deaths but describing these deaths as "murder" is a perversion of the word.

I think it is also fair to observe that the oil industry itself does not have clean hands when it comes to oil exploration and production. The quintessential example may well be the industry's behavior in the Niger Delta. No serious person can deny that a number of deaths there have been directly linked to the industry.

It is indeed, I agree with a great deal of what you said, and I appreciate the effort you put into the post.

While I agree that the oil industry, along with both our government and most oil-producing nation governments, have less than clean hands, I still do believe that drilling US oil is to our benefit in that it reduces our reliance on Iraq, et al., but esp on the Saudis, who I think are extremely hypocritical in their supposed support of the US. As we've seen in the recent past, the mere threat of increased drilling in the US sends the price of oil down; imagine what would happen if we really drilled. Not to be confused with blind support of oil as THE fuel. Oil and gas for things that move; nuclear, wind, and solar for things that don't.

I'd say the first Gulf war had a lot to do with oil, but remember the US was also coming to the aid of a country that was a victim of an unprovoked attack. This action had broad global and UN support.

I believe the second Gulf war had less to do with oil. Generally when people say "the war was about oil" what they infer is that it was a naked grab for Iraqi reserves initiated by the oil industry. This is nonsense, and the facts have borne this out when you consider who has won oil development contracts from the Iraqi government to date. It's also nonsense from a military and cost perspective. If the US oil industry wanted to seize foreign reserves it could have attacked the UAE or Kuwait with trumped up charges. Both countries have reserves and production similar to Iraq's, yet both are militarily very weak in comparison. People who had no qualms murdering hundreds of thousands of innocents took on the mightiest army in the Middle East, because they didn't have a good excuse to go after Kuwait or the UAE? (By the way, about 2/3 of Iraqi civilian deaths have been caused by insurgent's bombs).

I think Iraq was more about perceived security. Similar actions were also taken in Afghanistan. The widely respected BP Statistical Review of World Energy lists no oil reserves or production for Afghanistan.

When you say "the oil industry itself does not have clean hands when it comes to oil exploration and production", what do you mean exactly? There are about 13,800 oil companies operating in the US alone, and we can assume thousands more in many other countries. You speak of the industry as a monolith, as if all of these companies are really one, and it's guilty of something. One doctor is a quack, therefore we can say that the medical profession has dirty hands?

I don't know what the alleged crimes in Nigeria are, but I suspect the people's plight there has far more to do with incompetent and corrupt governance than it has to do with oil industry actions. After all, it's not any single oil company's responsibility to ensure that the host country it operates in has a sound government. Despite that, you can bet that any foreign oil operator in Nigeria has as part of its contract with the government obligations to build schools and/or hospitals, and employ a lot of locals.

Every industry you can name is going to have mostly good and a few bad members. Every industry will have its Enron's. I doubt that the oil industry is any more or less ethical than any other industry. This idea of a conspiring evil oil monolith is a populist notion that much of the US public accepts (considering the wild emotions attached) practically as religious doctrine. But there is absolutely no evidence to support this view. If there were, we'd be hearing a lot about it, and we'd see widespread antitrust action and criminal prosecution. But we don't see this. Thoughtful people ought to be asking themselves why they don't.

Your response regarding the second Gulf war begins with, "Generally when people say ..." and rebuts that position. (BTW, you mean "imply" not "infer"). But in my post I specifically stated, it was "not directly about Iraq's oil reserves". Thus, I have no interest responding to a rebuttal of a position I do not hold.

I did not mean to suggest the oil industry was a monolithic block. "This idea of a conspiring evil oil monolith" is not in my post. Nowhere did I suggest conspiratorial actions. Again, I will not attempt to rebut positions I do not hold nor state in my posts.

You seem to have this habit, swimmer, of reading into my posts what is not there. I did not take a position for or against offshore oil drilling yet you found it necessary to cite numerous polls to support YOUR postion. The word "vicious" appeared in YOUR post and not mine. And I've already mentioned how you misread my previous post. Please try to stick to the issues that are explicitly on the table.

That said, I appreciate that you and JohnLocke (and, yes, me too) have returned to a civil - if very contentious - discourse. But we've taken the Veneco matter to distantly related issues (at best) so I'm prepared to leave the discussion at this point. I have no doubts that we will have plenty of opportunities to cross paths (swords?) again.

My comments in that last post were not all directed at you. Some were, where I specifically asked for your feedback on what you meant by the dirty hands comment. But that post was more of a general statement on public perception of the oil industry, and I stand by it. People are only too quick to uncritically accept, even assume, wrongdoing when it comes to the industry. It's unacceptable, and rightly so, to so easily assume guilt when it comes to, say, minorities. But the assumption of guilt by the general public on the part of the oil industry has become part of US psyche, and in my view is completely unwarranted and unfair to a half million employees in that industry.

The polls were cited because you questioned the stance of "a majority of US voters .... regarding offshore oil drilling" based on "the amount of applause at the state of the union speech." I think citing poll findings is a perfectly legitimate response to your comment, which implied to me that you don't believe what the majority of Americans feel about offshore drilling. Apologies if I misread your intent, but in reviewing it sure seems to me that that was the thought behind your words.

I agree that going off on tangents is really not always relevant to the issue at hand, but indirectly there is some relevance. Many people are probably opposed to the Venoco project purely because they believe that the oil industry is some evil force that they must oppose. This is why I wanted to comment on public perceptions of the industry. If residents want to vote against the project, they should do so for rational, thoughtful, and supportable reasons, and not base their decision on some kind of misguided paranoia.